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How do bunnies/piggies know how to drink from bottles?s

sally1974

Wise Old Thumper
Just wondering what your thought are. Is it instinct? Do they just search for it and come across it? Just wondered.
 
I think they learn. Either from 'mum' (or another bunny), or they smell the water and experiment until it comes out, i.e. teaching themselves.

I don't, personally, see how it can be an instinct because drinking from a bottle is not what wild rabbits do.
 
I think they learn. Either from 'mum' (or another bunny), or they smell the water and experiment until it comes out, i.e. teaching themselves.

I don't, personally, see how it can be an instinct because drinking from a bottle is not what wild rabbits do.

I did think that:lol:
 
Mine have forgotten. I put a bottle on their run and they wouldn't drink from it, just chinned it.
 
Can't some animals smell water unlike us so they know where to get it from?

I know there is pavlov and his classical conditioning but we don't condition our rabbits into drinking out of a bottle at all so not sure that theory would fit with buns.
 
:wave: Animals can smell water, so I'm guessing they smell it & get the water out of the bottle by trial & error initially :)
 
I know there is pavlov and his classical conditioning but we don't condition our rabbits into drinking out of a bottle at all so not sure that theory would fit with buns.

yeah, but Pavlovian conditioning works more naturally than that sometimes. Look up something called a Skinner Box. I remember watching Derren Brown once where he put ten people in a sealed room and told them that when this 'score' up on a board reached 100 they would get a prize, but they didn't know how to score, so they were going around doing random things and occasionally getting a score. They worked out that doing things on one foot earned a bit of score, doing things hopping on one foot earned them more.
In actual fact it was every time a goldfish swam in front of a sensor in the fish tank they got a point, and what the participants did meant nothing :).
The buns would have started doing random things to the shiny metal thing that smelt of water, and eventually one of them gave them what they wanted, so they did it again, and again they got water, and the cycle reinforces itself until it becomes nature.
I think.;)
 
When I got one of my bunnies she didn't drink out of a bottle so I had to put a dish out. Since bonding her with another who can drink out of a bottle, she quickly learnt how to use it!
 
all our babies watched mum then tried ramming random body pieces against it till it worked:lol:

lmao!!! same with matildas baby who has just learnt how to drink from a bottle!! i tried a shallow dish, as suggested but the beby decided a summer bath was in order! haa
 
lmao!!! same with matildas baby who has just learnt how to drink from a bottle!! i tried a shallow dish, as suggested but the beby decided a summer bath was in order! haa

our babies where born in febuary it was freezing so i decided against the bowl just incase... probably just aswell as pixel sits in his water bowl now:lol:
 
I think its an instinct to smell water. Hubby always said:if its there,they'll find it, too. I mainly use bottles but in winter both&both get used though they never seem to have been taught.
 
CAN they actually smell water though? I've often wondered this as Louie has never, ever drunk any of the water in his bowl and I worry he doesn't know it's there :?
 
I think its more a case of them investigating anything new that comes into their home area. They will smell it, then lick or try and eat it - its natural to taste things so i'd say once they lick it then the water starts coming out they catch on fairly quickly. When animals get thirsty they normally lick things anyway
 
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